Night Journey

180 x 118 x 43 cmpowder coated steel, skipping rope2016-2018

The Lamentation series is a group of 4 sculptures based on Martha Graham’s performances Lamentation (1930) and Night Journey (1947).

Rowena Chiu commissioned the works for the show the The Blue Hour. The brief was to make a work based on the twilight period in the morning or evening. These periods of time are moments when the experience of space around the individual changes for everyone.

Martha Graham was interested in the opposition of contraction and release a concept based on the dancers breathing cycle. I used this idea to relate to the open and closed tendencies of night and day through our physical and psychological relationship to changes in space and form. The geometric use of steel aims to highlight this tension and references modernist sculptural practices such as Isamu Noguchi who created the props for Graham’s performance.

I was interested in freezing the extreme moments of Graham’s choreography to last forever. To cease change for the purpose of examination and understanding.

This melancholic idea contrasts with the aggressive material and angular forms giving rise to another tension between the industrial, tense nature of welded steel and the elegant nature of 20th century dance.

The skipping ropes, some of which are contemporary to the conception of Lamentations reference booth the ropes she used in the works and other cultural moments that were happening at the same time as the work was being performed such as Disney and Coca-Cola. They imply movement of cultural meaning as much as the movement of the dancer in relation to the choreographic ideals of the piece.

Night Journey Richard Evans Artist Sculpture

Night Journey Detail Richard Evans Artist Sculpture

Lamentation 1

2016-2018powder coated steel120 x 94 x 46 cm

Richard Evans Lamentation 1 2018 artist sculpture

Richard Evans Lamentation Detail 1 2018 artist sculpture

Lamentation 3

2016-2018powder coated steel210 x 92 x 47 cm

Lamentation 3 Richard Evans Artist Sculpture

Lamentation 3 Detail Richard Evans Artist Sculpture

Lamentation 2

2016-2018powder coated steel160 x 105 x 43 cm

Lamentation 2, Richard Evans, Artist, Sculpture

Lamentation 2 Detail Richard Evans Artist Sculpture

Rimbaud HD

Rimbaud HD and The Quiet Sun are made by combing ideas concerning aesthetics in ancient sculpture, industrial processes, folk art forms (especially 19th century weather vanes), domestic superstition and narrative. Both works use clock pendulum bobs as aesthetic weights balancing the composition and highlighting the works relationship to time. Viewed from the side they resemble clock mechanisms or antiquated machines.

The incorporation of a broken mirror highlights the uncanny time travel aspect of the work’s references and introduces illusionary depth into the display. Although the shapes and monochromatic colour palette seem to relate to modernism and industrial design they also relate to contemporary domestic interiors and furniture.

A lake is divided by a bridge, two figures stand in the middle.

2016steel, glass, watch, iron filings, resin, paint52 x 12 x 12 in

The Late One Evening works are a series of steel sculptures that combine modernist abstract works such as Anthony Caro’s Early One Morning with cultural and psychologically loaded objects. The sculptures use interdependent construction techniques of steel with the aesthetics of furniture. This dialogue is then activated by the addition of seemingly arbitrary domestic objects such as doughnuts, a TV antenna, gate lock, digital watch and an ashtray. The objects bring a domestic psychological reading to the legacy of modernism and minimalism, dislocating a narrative relationship between consumption, entertainment, materials and industry.

Richard Evans Pink Casio (detail) 2016 artist sculpture

Zzand

2015steel, glass, resin, cigarette 48.5 x 21.5 x 10.5 in

Richard Evans Zzand 2015 artist sculpture

Gate

2015steel71 x 36 x 32 in

Richard Evans Gate 2015 Artist Sculpture

Richard Evans Gate (detail) 2015 artist sculpture

Antenna

2015steel, tv antennas, resin70 x 36 x 21 in

Richard Evans Antenna 2015 artist sculpture

Richard Evans Antenna (detail) 2015 artist sculpture

dOughnuts

2015resin, steel, solder, doughnuts, glass, pigment53 x 61 x 23 in

Richard Evans d0ughnuts 2015 artist sculpture

Richard Evans d0ughnuts (detail) 2015 artist sculpture

Richard Evans d0ughnuts (detail) 2015 artist sculpture

Hole

2013resin, silver nitrate16 x 7.5 x 1.25 in

In Hole poisonous silver nitrate traditionally used in photography is frozen in resin. The piece is a resin cast taken from a melted wax triangle. The work is transparent when initially de-molded and blackens slowly over a period of months. The resulting pattern and eventual black and brown patina is created by the reaction of the silver nitrate to sunlight. This patina is dependent on where it is placed in relation to a light source.

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Richard Evans AGNO3 2013 artist sculpture

March 2014

Richard Evans AGNO3 2013 artist sculpture

July 2013

Bulb

2013-201531 x 42 x 4.5 inresin, silver nitrate, moss, pigment, pewter

The cast moss works deal with one of the key aims of traditional casting which is freezing a form that is seen as weak and fragile in a permanent and strong material therefore aiming for the ideas inherent in the original work to last forever and increase the opportunity for the work to spread it’s message. This idea is executed with objects relating to location, technology and the body through the use of vegetation, cast vegetables, body parts and a light bulb.

These works attack the fallacy of the stable and immortal art object. The fragile reindeer moss, farmed in Norway is most commonly used in table decorations or incorporated into ornamental plant arrangements. Here the moss is mixed with poisonous silver nitrate used in traditional photography and polyester resin. The moss reacts with the silver nitrate and slowly blackens giving an artificial appearance of decay. The freezing action of the resin appears to stop the decay in mid-action. The resulting color is a mottled camouflage effect which reinforces the idea of a material in-between abstraction and figuration. This military/body aspect is also reflected in the use of the bayonet which props apart two resin forms making an isosceles triangle. The decay effect is highlighted by the dripping texture that comes from the mold. The molds are made from wax blocks that had melted in the hot sunshine of the New York Summer of 2013. The mold was made while the wax was in it’s dripping state, halfway between liquid and solid.

Many of the works feature pewter objects. Pewter was the staple medieval material for plates and cups, also used as a cheap metal for casting objects used in religious ceremonies. The objects were chosen to echo the act of change either symbolically such as the apple or physically such as the light bulb or bodily such as the bayonet or the cast nipples. The pendulum on (O) is from a mid century clock, here it sits still. A stillness that is echoed in all the parts of the works.

Ramses' Eyes, Frankenstein's Last Breath

The myth of the science student being asked to power a radio by wiring together onions and the many youtube videos dedicated to proving the possibility of this impossible task led to this collaboration with Brock Enright.

By mounting onions on a steel structure with miscellaneous dollar shop objects covered in snow and plaster we found a way to investigate the aesthetic consequences of decay and the formal results of natural materials pierced by disposable materials. By creating this artificial network we attempted to create a hellish circuit hidden by a blizzard.

The title takes it’s name from Ramses II, reputedly the most ostentatious Pharo who when buried had his eyes replaced with onions and Frankenstein the scientist who created a living creature by stitching together body parts taken from dead criminals.

A steel structure was build inside the gallery to allow for two types of improvisation. Objects and materials (thread, beads, washing up liquid, clamps, rubber tubes, string, pins and wire) were arranged in a participatory relationship to onions (pierced, crushed, sewn, hung and liquidized) and then a snow machine covered the work. The installation was then left and allowed to decay.

The work was designed to investigate sculptural limits, historical myths, theatrical tricks and narrative tropes and attempted to evoke tears in two ways. First with onions which induce tears through physical interaction, and secondly through a fake snow storm which intimates tears through sentimentality or romance.

The end result was a grotto like experience in which Santa’s elves who had been busy making cheap disposable toys had left the room and the mysterious onion machine had taken over. It was a battle between nature and commerce where nature as it always does had won.

Richard Evans Brock Enright Ramses Eyes 2013 artist sculpture

Richard Evans Ramses Eyes (detail) artist sculpure

Richard Evans Brock Enright Ramses Eyes (detail) 2013 artist sculpure

Richard Evans Brock Enright Ramses Eyes (detail) 2013 artist sculpure

Richard Evans Ramses Eyes (detail) artist sculpure

Ramses' Eyes by Catherine Fisness

Documentation of the installation of Ramses' Eyes, Frankenstein's Last Breath by Catherine Fisness.

Richard Evans Ramses Eyes (detail) artist sculpure

...after four weeks

Richard Evans Ramses Eyes (detail) artist sculpure

Richard Evans Brock Enright Ramses Eyes (detail) 2013 artist sculpure

Richard Evans Ramses Eyes (detail) artist sculpure

Richard Evans Brock Enright Ramses Eyes (detail) 3013 artist sculpure

Ramses Eyes Frankenstein's Last Breath by Richard Evans

Sound used in the installation Ramses Eyes Frankenstein's Last Breath made in collaboration with Brock Enright at Orgy Park, Brooklyn 2013.

Pencil on a D String

2010pencil, paper, wire, guitar string 15.5 x 12.5 x 4 in

Pencil on D String is made from a guitar string and wire sewn onto paper. The resulting shadow was traced in pencil. The drawing attempts to describe the expression and tension that I look for in all sculptures, a tension between the aesthetic description of existence and the fragility of material existence.

All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis

installation views, Southfirst, New York2011

All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis at Southfirst Gallery, Brooklyn presented a series of works that took composer Morton Subonick’s sound work (the first on the outdated technology of the CD-Rom) as a starting point and turned it into a series of sculptures that played with ideas of sound as object, improvisation, parameters, materiality and the influence of folk and african/tribal art on sculpture, especially the work of Max Ernst. Morton Subotnick had himself been inspired to make the work by looking at Max Ernst collages.

All works started from a logical examination of materials and their limits (clay, resin, rubber, computer tape, steel, guitar strings, wax, glass, plasticine, wood, alabaster, plaster, paint, charcoal) then used these conclusions to discuss sculptural interests such as interdependence, the body, structure, narrative, sound and technology. The way these materials connected with the themes was discovered through improvisations similar to the way the sound work itself was made.

To hear the music from Morton Subotnick’s CD-Rom All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis please follow this link.

The Invention of The Devil

2010glass wax, guitar string, wire, headphones27 x 20 x 1 in

The Invention of The Devil is a sculpture/sound work. The sound element, presented on headphones next to the sculpture consists of Kafka's diaries read aloud by automated text readers emulating accents from different parts of the world combined with re-imagined sound works by György Kurtág. The sculpture is a single guitar string dipped in glass wax.

T25

Black Grape

In Black Grape, Evans’s giant wave towers over the viewer with an air of monumental sadness. Made from silicone carbide, a material used for grinding rocks and cutting diamonds, Black Grape’s dark swell is a metaphor for existential crisis, desire and grief.

Personifying his raw force of nature with fag butts and a beverage can, Evans renders a sense of powerlessness in the face of immense beauty and devastation. The palm tree on the Black Grape drink logo mirrors the curvaceous composition of the wave.